bio

Family gatherings and Great-Grandmother at the piano provided Alabama born Jenni

Wallace her earliest exposure to homemade music. She came under the spell of old-time and bluegrass music in the early '70's and began acquiring a variety of instruments. Guitar came first, but mountain dulcimer, banjo and fiddle soon followed. During the early '80's Jenni played for two years with an Omaha band called 'The Old Time Wood And String Company". It was around this time that she took up the hammered dulcimer. She has played as a duo with Kathy as Wallace & Wood, in the Rivertown String Band with Jim for the past 22 years. Jenni also teaches music lessons on various folk instruments.

Dishwashing squabbles were quelled when Kathy Wood's parents suggested that she and her older sister sing Girl Scout camp songs together to pass the time. In the '50s, she had accordion lessons which was enough to convince her that the accordion was not for her. After moving to Omaha, Nebraska in the late '60s, she was introduced to the

autoharp and much later learned guitar and old-time banjo. She and her husband, Jim,

have been mainstays of the Omaha Folk Song Society for over 60 years and members of Great Plains Bluegrass and Old-Time Music Association since its inception in 1976.